They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A lot of people won't date you though if they think that you're looking for a soulmate. It would be playing somebody to pretend that you want a serious relationship if you don't but what if they're just looking for no strings and you keep quiet about wanting more than that? They say that they don't want a commitment and aren't going to give you one, so where's the problem in dating them until something better comes along? You aren't going to get all clingy on them, which is what they say that they don't want but you'll drop them for somebody that's offering more than friendship with benefits.

Is this really being deceitful? It's hard to see how if you're giving them what they want and you want it too, for now.

How do you know that you're what they really want? Because they told you so? More likely what they really want is an unatainable fantasy. It's like when someone doesn't have enough money to buy a top of the range car and they then say that all that they really want is something reliable that gets them from A to B.

Well, she might want a traditional Scottish wedding and there's no way that I'm dressing up to look like something off a shortbread tin.

I'm simply not interested in going on webcam with anybody. Neither are most women. I don't want a virtual date. I'm fine with the first meeting really being the first meeting and I told you that I'm not interested in cybering.

It really isn't a problem for me. Ugly women leave me alone and the worst that's happened is that I got a flat chested date once. These things happen but I got over it. At least we had a nice chat. She didn't like it when I told her that she wasn't really my type though. No woman likes that. Do I look like I'm desperate and would be interested in an ugly old slapper? I don't think so and those are the types of guys they try it on with.

Well, it would be cheaper than paying a cleaning woman I suppose.

Yes. I would like to find true love and I don't want to end up as a lonely old man. Women don't really see me as husband material though and it's not bitterness but I've put myself through a lot of heartache over it and that's effected my career and made it even more unlikely that anyone would want a serious relationship with me.

The women that I've been with have all wanted a casual arangement but expected me to be faithful until they've had enough of me, or found someone that they think can do more for them than I'm able to and I think that it's about time that I get my self respect back and stop trying to be such a nice guy by giving them more than they're giving me.

Just another complaint that they won't talk to him.

If we're meeting in a public place I don't tell them that I'll be the guy holding a newspaper or wearing a flower in his buttonhole. I tell them to look out for me; the man in those pictures on my profile.

I can't imagine that a woman would tell me that she's a busty thirty year old blonde and not be anything like that when she showed up. Most of them lie about their ages anyway, so if she turns out to be forty that isn't completely awful because that's still within the age range that I would date. One woman turned out to be fifty two, when her profile said forty eight. She said that she did that because young guys kept hitting on her when it had her real age on it.

I've got a problem with it. I won't give my email to anyone that I've never met in person.

I'm not interested in cybering either and this is where I do agree with you. As soon as anyone mentions trading photos I just think scammer or cam girl.

Most of that's sound but you aren't going to get a video chat or even a phone call from a lot of women because they're too nervous. They're scared enough about the actual meeting and would rather just leave it until then.

I'm not sure but there was a woman that put her profile up for rating here once that had on it that she's still really good friends with her ex and she believed that people would think that's admirable how she doesn't just cast people aside when a relationship doesn't work out.

There are also women that are so dumb or full of themselves that they would probably post pictures of themselves with a male friend and not even bother that guys viewing their profile would have a problem that there's a picture of them there with a guy.

Maybe another possibility is that they're someone that they met on here and they decided to take a picture to remember the occasion. Maybe they're just showing you what they look like when they're on a date with somebody. Maybe it's to tell you what league they're in and to not even bother if you're not as good looking as that.

It would just bother you that a guy pretended that you were a friend of his? Why would anyone do that? Because he's not really got any friends? You don't want to get a reputation for being friends with a loser? Thatt's harsh.

Women give all sorts of reasons for not posting pictures or not posting real ones. You've got at least one identifyable picture though. You're just daft if you're more worried about some dipshit besmirching your reputation on the internet than you're worried about stalkers. Take all your pics down if you're determined to take what you're saying are reasonable precautions.

Lame.

You may as well say that you think that being photographed can steal your soul. What sort of a sad bastard would tag pictures of women on Facebook to pretend that they were his girlfriends and why would worrying about something like that keep you awake at night? Not very nice? Just pathetic more like and Facebook is for braindead morons that haven't got anything better to do with their time. If you get your knickers in a twist about something like that you're as bad as they are.

Blondey gets it.

There's a chapter in Trainspotting where one of the characters talks about class and sophistication and how it's only guys that need to boast about it that do and that if you just say nothing people think that you're the man and that you don't have any problems getting women.

Think of this as being like the opposite of a "nice guy" rant. James Bond wouldn't whine about his ex on a date, or go on about how it's unfair that women prefer bad boys to nice guys. He will treat you like a lady and be sexy and charming straight away. He's already made up his mind whether he wants to sleep with you or not and he doesn't need to know if you're going to think that he's a nice guy first.

The moralising comments without any argument to back them up were expected of course. Merely the statement that a gentleman should be celibate or monogamous until he finds a woman that he wants to settle down with.

Gentlemen don't kiss and tell. They don't boast about it to their friends and they are "discrete".

If he's a gentleman he acts so towards ladies and is charming. He's a "ladies man". Boyfriend or husband material perhaps and if he's a perfect gentleman he would treat any woman like a lady.

This is how you can keep as many women as you want on the go at a time and they could all be floozies but if they weren't and one of them was you you wouldn't know about it unless he failed to be a discreet gentleman, or you hacked his email or something.

Now, let's not assume that you're married or living together. Maybe you only just met him. He hasn't made a commitment to you. He seems like a perfect gentleman. Not just a guy desperate for sex. Well, he wouldn't be if he's seeing other women.

What would you think if you knew all this about him? Would it change your opinion of him from gentleman to player or womaniser, or just see him as a discreet gentleman that doesn't kiss and tell and enjoys an active sex life and is perfectly entitled to as long as he's a batchelor.

Would you really expect a gentleman to be a monk, just because he's taken a vow of silence?

I don't think we're getting the full story here. All he's saying is that she's now his ex and he doesn't want a woman like that but he did on that first date. Probably she just finished it because he thought she was sleeping with other clients and got all jealous on her. He's not saying that she did cheat and he's just calling her a whore now that she's his ex.

Well, I wouldn't give up on a woman I wanted to be with, whatever her family thought about us being together and if they were forcing her to choose and threatening to disown her that would be a decision for her to make.

It is something that I've thought about actually from seeing stories like that on chat shows. Ideally I would want my woman to get on with her family, whether they like me or not but if they were upsetting her by telling her to leave me and slagging me off all the time I think that it would probably be better for her to stay away from them anyway. I'm not saying that I would tell her to choose but she would if I was making her happy and they weren't. Then they would doubtlessly say that I was a control freak when they did it all themselves.

It's more differences between the sort of person I am (which includes my taste in women) that they would disapprove of. My dad seems to think that any woman that I would get involved with would have to be "another tart" and my mother might say that someone's not right for me because she's my mum and wants me to be a certain way, or likes to think of me as just being a nice sensitive person, even though I'm far from perfect.

Actually, I think that I would like to date a black girl just because my dad would probably think that's worse than a tart.

Where it's difficult is that like a lot of people, when I've had problems with girlfriends I've told my family and that colours their opinion. Then they think that they have the right to say nasty things about them to me, which I don't usually apreciate, even if I'm not getting on with the girlfriend in question.

Yeah. You just don't know and like an idiot I sent another message saying that it was just my humour and clumsy way of saying that I was interested in getting to know her. Probably she's just talking to another guy instead because she's been online plenty since then apparently and still hasn't replied.

I'm just going to leave it and if that one doesn't reply it's no big deal but I do find it tricky to not put my foot in it on here because humour and flirting doesn't come across so well in text and it's maybe just creepy from a stranger online. Don't know.

I don't know if this is just me but whenever I try to flirt, or be a bit cheeky, in messages it tends to scare them off.

I'll give you an example. There was one here last night. Intimate encounter but I'm not judging. It sounded like we had common interests and that she was a chilled out sort of person that isn't easily offended. I mean, I messaged her about her interests and she mentioned that she liked a particular comedian because he's really offensive. I replied, saying that I'm definetely into stuff like that and not just trying to get an intimate encounter out of her because she said something on her profile about looking for people that are genuinely into going to comedy clubs with her. I would have thought that someone like that, that's local and should get my humour wouldn't be put off, just because I made a flirty comment about her profile but she didn't reply again.

I know that was probably too early to alude to sex, even with someone that's looking for it but they can get all funny about it even if you've been chatting for ages, when if it was a proper face to face date they would expect you to flirt with them.

Please don't just say that it's because they just don't fancy me. I get dates but mostly when I'm not even trying to chat them up. It's like I have to wait for them to ask me out and I can't flirt with them unless they give me express permission to do so by calling me honey, or something.

There are different types of red flags. Sometimes it can be as simple as feeling that your personalities will clash. That can be as much about you as it is about them. I don't think that it's realistic to think that I can get a passionate woman that is just easy to get along with. I don't know if someone that just went with the flow and never got flustered about anything would be less irritating.

And without going into too many details, I saw no red flags with the last woman that I met and she seemed easy to get along with and a nice honest girl, when she turned out to be a dirty little liar.